What does it mean to be spiritually dead?

[Singalphile]

I'm becoming quite frustrated in my attempts to find the origin of the idea that Adam&Eve "spiritually died", so I'll ask again:

Does anyone know who first proposed or claimed that Adam & Eve "spiritually died"?

It's not really important, I know. ... probably shouldn't have spent so much of my day on it! Thanks!

[dizerner]

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[TheEditor]

Greetings,

I think you need to be a bit more dizerning...

I cannot say that all anyone ever has to go on is the testimony found in the Gospels. And yet, for 1900 years this has been the chief way the testimony regarding what Jesus did while in the flesh has been transmitted to us. God draws individuals to his Son by means of the testimony about him preserved in the Scriptures. A person is drawn by God if he accepts this testimony in faith. This is presented fairly clearly: "We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son." (1 John 5:9, 10) This testimony that "God has given about his Son" is amplified in the gospel narratives. (See for example: Mark 1:1; 15:39; John 20:31).

As I said before, this is not to say that God cannot or will not touch people in a profound way that is beyond the written testimony regarding His Son. But, to reference something you mentioned, an inward testimony (ie. buring in the bosom) may not be from a divine source, and if one can accept a written testimony that is a fabrication, the same can be said of accepting something "experiential".

Regards, Brenden.

[dizerner]

[user account removed]

[Singalphile]

Hi, dizener. Welcome (if I haven't already said it)!

Paul clearly says if Christ were not raised we would be dead in our sins. .... Paul didn't feel the need to say "spiritual" death, he just said "death."

It's true that he didn't say it, and neither did any other author of Scripture or early Christian writer, as far as I can tell, which is why I am curious as to where the term came from. But even more specifically, I am curious about who first proposed that Adam and Eve died a "spiritual death". If that were a natural or obvious deduction, then among other things, I would think that the ancient Jewish or Christian commentaries would all mention it, but I can't yet find it in any.

I have no major objection to the phrase "spiritual death". Since it's not a Biblical phrase, afaik, no one is under any obligation to use or not use the term, and you and I can define it however we like (unless referring to a specific person's use of the term). But I do prefer to just use the Biblical language, as I think I mentioned in my first post, and if I'm trying to explain a metaphorical or abstract passage of Scripture, I wouldn't want to use even an even more confusing term.

In the links you posted (thank you), the modern concept cannot be found in those early Christian quotes.

There seems to be a lot of Christian jargon, good and bad, that isn't Biblical, and I think it's interesting to find out where it came from. I see that Tertullian (AD 120) made a reference to death "in a spiritual sense", but he actually seemed to deride the notion (here).

[dizerner]

[user account removed]

[Singalphile]

Do you have a problem with the term spiritual life? I'll be completely frank with you, I'm mystified at people's puzzlement by a term that seems to be one of the most blaring and overriding themes of the entire Scripture.

I didn't think to look for "spiritual life" (or the equivalent). I wonder if that sort of phrase is in the Bible. In any case, no, I don't object. I explained in my first post what I think it could mean to be spiritually alive or dead. The presence of the theme in Scripture depends on how you define the term. You can define it however you want to, since it has no known source (unlike, say, being "born again").

Check this out it's quite good: http://orthodoxchurchquotes.com/tag/spiritual-death/ Some church fathers at least around 400 A.D. were using the term "spiritual death."

Eastern Orthodox. Interesting. Thank you.

Here's also an interesting conversation that closely parallels ours: https://answersingenesis.org/death-befo ... ual-death/

I'd already read that, and I found myself agreeing completely with Mr. Kulikovsky.

Again, my real, main question is this: Who first proposed that Adam & Eve died spiritually?

Have a good Sunday, all.

[dizerner]

[user account removed]

[TheEditor]

Greetings oh Dizerning one,

Well, I'm not sure how grammatically flawless my posts are, but I'll take the compliment nonetheless. And no, I am not now nor have I ever been an Editor. I did flirt with a brief stint as an Editor of a self-published journal (two issues) but that's all. Editor is a moniker I use as an inside joke with some friends. That's another story.

You wrote:

To an unsaved person these words sound like gibberish. The words without spirit behind them, do not convey any revelation. Our foundations are not found in naturalism, right? Since every argument from apologetics but one is sourced in naturalism, I really don't always see the use of it.....The only spiritual reality is an experience, but to make sure we don't have a false experience we check the Scripture. It's like our lodestone, our north star. Every born again believer is not some brain that heard and processed data, it's a spirit that's come alive in another dimension. You just can't "convince" or "inform" someone into a new birth.

So, it would be safe to say you would gravitate more to Kierkegaard than C.S. Lewis? That's fair enough. I don't know that I agree. Perhaps there are things going on in this spiritual transaction that I am not privy to; I'm open to that as I must admit to a mystical bent myself. But I do believe that a person can only have the Christian faith if it "follows the thing heard" as Paul says. You either believe, or you don't. I don't believe God superintends that we believe. I believe that we are chosen because we are drawn. Not all are drawn. People fill their spiritual needs all the time with things of the material.

I don't think that you convince or inform someone into being born again as you put it. But I do believe people inform themselves into being born-again. How could it be otherwise?

Regards, Brenden.

[Paidion]

If God said Adam died the day He sinned, then I believe Adam died the day he sinned.

I think it was Dizerner who pointed out that in the Hebrew it is written, "In the day you eat of it, dying you will die." It's the same in the Greek Septuagint.
What happened in the day that Adam and Eve ate from the tree was dying. They began to die, but they didn't die. What God said was "dying, you will die."
"Will die" is future. In the Septuagint, the verb for "will die" is in the future tense also. They wouldn't die in the day in which they ate it. Rather they began to die and were dying in the day they ate it, that is, the process of death began. But they actually died about 900 years or so later.